2016-10-25

The Problem: Physical Limits & Need for Automation = Complex Interfaces

Contents

I'll show you..

  • What is the cloud? What for?
  • Solution case studies.

The Cloud: A Metaphor

Serviced Apartments..



  • You can't afford the entire building.
  • You don't NEED the whole building.
  • But you want an apartment, and you want some control over what you do there and who visits.
  • You also don't want people in the other apartments ruining your experience.
  • You just need it for a few weeks. And more rooms this weekend for a party!

The Cloud

Some clouds..

Some common and confronting aspects of clouds..

  • Key pairs not passwords
  • Security groups
  • Storage 'volumes'
  • 'Object' storage

Commercial Clouds

Pros Cons
'Infinite' Power Often Expensive
On-Demand Easy to be irresponsible
Upgrades Can get 'locked in'
Reliable Data soverignity worries
Competition
No Procurement, Ops, Space

Data soverignity: Microsoft Azure

"European Union (EU) data protection law regulates the transfer of EU customer personal data to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA).."

"Microsoft has invested in the operational processes necessary to meet the exacting requirements of the Model Clauses for the transfer of personal data to processors."

(https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/TrustCenter/Compliance/EU-Model-Clauses)

Non-Commercial Clouds

Pros Cons
Cost Effective (merit)! Booked out
Great for long-running services Unreliable?
On-site


Over-all recommendation: They're complimentary solutions. Long-running compute, eg web hosting and services is quite good on a non-commercial cloud. 'Bursty' on AWS.

Case Studies

Genomics Virtual Lab: Bioinformatics Gateway Drug

Stuart's Nature Paper + App: Perfect Cloud Exemplar



Monash Bioinformatics Platform's Day to Day Compute and Storage